Lurking in Liverpool(UK) but will in TA for Purim with my daughter Danielle in 12 hours! She pointed me to your blog and said I should read you. She has met you in Jerusalem through mutual friends and hadn't realised you had a 'story' to tell.

Hi Gila,I'm from Haifa as you may have noticed from my "things flying through the air" comment.

You may want to add an analysis add-on that gives oyu information about who is visiting.Since you are using Blogger which is from the google bundle you may as well use Google Analytics www.google.com/analytics/home/You can also see how people get to you blah, blah, blahIf you need help setting it up I will happily help you.

Hod Hasharon, Israel (originally from Houston, Texas). You can also register your blog on sitemeter.com - they give all kinds of stats. I have my blog registered there - very cool. (I read you through my RSS reader too !)

Hi Gila,my name is Jany and i'm reading your blog from Switzerland ( near Geneva ). I don't remember excatly how i found your blog, but there's a high chance that it was via Treppenwitz.Thank you for writing.Purim Sameach

I recently added you to my rss reader. Spent some time really reading through your intro posts today. I am from Central Wisconsin in the USA. I visited Israel in 2000 and loved it! I pray that HaShem will bless you. Purim Sameach.

avid lurker in beirut, lebanon. gila, you are amazing!! i'm sure this has occurred to you already, but there is a thoughtful, inspirational and deeply witty book waiting to be compiled from these posts...

I can't remember where I found you ... maybe through Isreality? Thanks for sharing (and continuing to share) your story! I am surrounded by wheat fields and rural, small town life. Your blog makes real to me what is happening in a part of the world I know only through books and the news.

Not an official lurker since I've commented a couple times, but just for the record: I live in suburban New York, and I found you via Bad4Shidduchim. Enjoy your writing. Go, Gila! Fellow readers: boy, you're a really cool, diverse bunch. And yes, I also read Treppenwitz.

I am from South Africa, found you on BlogCarnival planning to visit Israel one of these days as I am very interested in your history and people. I am not Jewish but like to learn more about your feasts and festivals

Madelyn, previously lurking in New York. I moved to a moshav near Ashkelon with my husband(who grew up on said moshav) and my children 14 years ago. Actually, I've been wanting to tell you how much I have enjoyed your blog. Your writing is wonderful. I was blown away about your explanation for coming to live in Israel, as you took everything I felt since I first came to Israel on a year course here in 1978, and put it into words. It was as if you had read my thoughts and feelings. I think that you are amazing. Keep up the great work.

I just want to point out that contrary to Yedida's post (#80 I think) NO ONE is "born Catholic" or "Catholic by birth" - your parents might have had you baptised as a wee baby and they may have raised you Catholic - you may even have chosen to be confirmed a Catholic when you reached the age of maturity, but you weren't "born" one in as much as you cannot be "born" a Democrat, a graphic designer, nor a skilled knitter.

I'm annie and I'm in Petach Tikva. I think I got to you via Treppenwitz, or perhaps via Discarded Lies. I love your blog, I admire your courage and your humour in the face of adversity is simply astounding.

Eric Ferguson III (TSGT USAF Ret.)Merritt Island,FL. 55, reformed and scar tissue doesn't scare me. I've got a belly full of it my self. Though I don't have as interesting a story. Found you through the Sandmonkey. echofox3.blogspot.com New recipes every Tues. The rest of the time crap.

am originally from North Dakota, but was relocated to Crown heights as part of the witness protection program's 'deeeeeeep cover' project,after spending 6 months learning to emulate a Brooklyn accent :-)

am originally from North Dakota, but was relocated to Crown heights as part of the witness protection program's 'deeeeeeep cover' project,after spending 6 months learning to emulate a Brooklyn accent :-)

Big fan of your writing Gila. Your turn of phrase, your eye for the poetics of sadness, your wit. Whether it's about your experience following the pigua or nearly anything else in life, your writing illuminates a world for those of us not lucky enough to know you in person.

I'm lurking from Philadelphia, though I got hooked on your blog when I was living in Jerusalem and had a (financially) unhealthy obsession with Mahane Yehuda.

Heard about you through a mutual friend "CK", the grand poobah at Jewlicious.

I know this is over a week after you posted this question, but I just wanted to tell you that I am lurking from Chashmonaim (near Modiin) and I really enjoy your blog, although "enjoy" doesn't seem quite the right word to use. But thanks for sharing your stories with us.

Gila, I found you through Ace of Spades HQ today and have already bookmarked you to be a daily read. I love your vulnerability and your honesty and in just the few minutes I've been reading you've brought me to tears. May the great G_D of whose Chosen People you are part bless you and heal you. You're in my prayers.

New to My Shrapnel? Start at the beginning:

About Me

Message from the Bombing Victim Muppet

I am, of course, neither sad, nor heroic nor particularly victimized. What I am is an "ordinary Joe" who was seriously injured six years ago in a suicide bombing while waiting for a bus at the Machane Yehuda open air market in Jerusalem.

Ever since I learned how to write, writing has served as a sort of therapy for me. In the months and years after the bombing, I did an enormous amount of writing. What I was thinking. What I was feeling. How the world reacted to me. How my bombed-out self reacted to the world. Some of the articles were sent to friends and relatives via email lists. Many more of them just sat on my computer. I always meant to do something with them.

Of course, I never got around to it.

This year, I promised myself that I would, at last do something. And since blogging is the best way to do something without having to do all that much (no publishers, no rejections, no work apart from editing), I decided that this was the way to go.

Please comment. I am putting these out so that people will read them. Let me know that you are reading.